Our students come to Chemistry after half a year of physical science in ninth grade so rather than repeating the instruction, the students do a research project on the Development of the Atom. I provide a rubric that covers the models and apparatus used by Democrtius, Dalton, Thomson, and Rutherford. For the project the students can choose to present in various ways. I now have great models of the Crookes' tube and the Gold Foil Expt. from students that help our visual learners with visualizing the set-up. Models of the atom at various stages of development are also great fro teh students to see.
I also do an element project with the students where physical and chemical properties are researched as well as electron configuration, which help reinforce what I am teaching at the time. I assigned the project by letting students pick from a stack of periodic table hot cups that have one of the symbols highlighted. That way the students pick randomly and no two students have the same element. The students are funny about taking ownership of their elements when later in the year we look the a certain student as the "expert" if a question ever arises about their element. At the end of the unit the students have a puzzle to complete by fitting physical and chemical properties of "unknown elements" together.
I was happy to see the marble board in action as a demo. We bought one a couple of years ago and I have not used it since I could not work out how to show the orbitals. However I liked the idea of the two boards side by side to show electron transfer. I have never played the rummy with cards but play element bingo and ion bingo (for prizes) to help the students learn their element facts and ion changes and formulas.
I'm afraid the balloons did not do anything for me because, as the teacher said in the video, the central atoms around the electron clouds are not there. Pity, because the shapes are great. Can anyone out there help me to make the concept workable since they are great visual apart from that problem?
As to the pre workshop, liked the chicken mesh representing the layers of graphite. I may use that next year. We have a paper model of the C 60 that the students color and put together while they watch the Buckyball video. These hang from the ceiling of the classroom all year! Again hands on and ownership seem to help get the student invested.

I also have the students make a timeline of their own, but we do not make a
class timeline. Who does what part? I am interested.

Also I have them each research an element and make square for a huge class
periodic table that includes who discovered, when, what does it looks like,
and what does it do? I am interested in the advertising though. That
sounds fun!!

I have never played the rummy game with the cards. In your opinion, does
this really help with the students understanding? Curious.

I have never had the students put together a table like Mendeleev either. I
run out of time in the year as it is and feel I do not have time. I am
wrong for doing this?

After watching the first videos I thought about some ways my
department does similar things that work for us in chemistry:

1. To introduce the atom we do a research project where each kid
researches someone involved in developing the model of the atom ( from
a Woodrow Wilson Workshop), we also have made models of some of the
most important experiments, like the Rutherford gold foil experiment,
that are hands-on for students to use. The research gets put together
into a class timeline and from that we build the concepts of the
modern atom.

2. On the periodic table we also research. Each students get one
element to adopt and must design an advertising campaign for that
element. On the research sheet they have to find various properties
and industrial uses. We assign elements 1-36. Once we have all the
advertising presented, we have the class form a living periodic table
and then we start having them read out certain properties to see if
they can perdict the trends. Works great! I also have this learning
game that uses playing cards to show how Mendeleev predicted missing
elements. If you are interested I can look up the name.

3. The wooden marble board works great on valence electrons and so
forth. I also have a formula rummy, but my rummy cards have corners -
two if the charge is +2, three if the charge is +3, while the negative
charges are indented. Molecules then "fit" together and students can
write formulas from that.After a while they no longer need the rummy
cards.

4. I also use the ballons and think they work best, but I aslo have
snap on ropes tied to a central ring and have students play terminal
atoms and try to maneuver themselves as far away from each other as
possible - fun!